I must admit I am a lover of the sequential arts (graphic storytelling). Comics, animation, cave drawings, and storyboards bring narratives to life while interacting with the observer on a whole new level. If you are in the preproduction stage of your project it is imperative that you have your ideas sketched out and here are five good reasons.

• 1 Structure Humans have a lot of thoughts racing through their heads at any give moment. Once you have written out the pertinent ideas, they may not be structured to convey a story or a chain of events. Visualization will help with the focus and fluidity of the story or ideas. • 2 Predict and Prevent Issues in Storytelling or Production Having a visual representation of your shot list or script can help you notice weak points in your story well before you invest in production. This will save time, money, and hair, as you will not be pulling it out later. Example: Working on story that required a paintbrush to move through a complex set. The goal was to show off the environment, but the story suggested that the video would come off as being about the paintbrush. Were the brush’s movements a serendipitous circumstance, or was it a possessed self-motived paintbrush? No one wants to buy a haunted paintbrush and –oh yeah we weren’t selling paintbrushes! The concept worked in text, not as in visuals.

• 3 Ground Your Project in Reality

No matter what your project is, it needs to be financially and physically attainable. Drawing out your plans can help you stay the course. If it’s a pain to hand draw a thousand people, then imagine how hard it will be orchestrating a thousand characters when in production.

• 4 Storyboards are Art

There is something special about capturing a quick gesture representation of a complex story or idea. Getting to see the underlining work or process adds a humanist element to a project. Even technologically sophisticated and highly produced blockbusters like, The Dark Knight Rises had concept art and storyboards.

• 5 An Archival Representation of the Process

Most projects end with the product. Here’s your movie, your album, your telescope whatever…But what about all the hours of process that it took to create the product? Storyboards and concept drafts are physical artifacts of the lengths it took to achieve and end result. The notes and drawing done in the preproduction stages can be compiled and used to reference, inspire and educate.